


Bulletproof

by pwcorgigirl



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 02:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18562489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pwcorgigirl/pseuds/pwcorgigirl
Summary: House takes drastic action, and Wilson comes to the rescue. This is the second sequel to A Good Shooting.





	Bulletproof

Title: _Bulletproof_  
Author: PWCorgigirl  
Notes: The third in a series of fics sparked way back in 2016 by the **Slash Challenge: Positively House/Wilson**. Rated for mid-teens and up for goriness. In this AU, House is a police detective and Wilson is a medical examiner. They are in an established relationship. First in the series is [A Good Shooting](https://pwcorgigirl.dreamwidth.org/151167.html). Second is [Safe Shot.](https://pwcorgigirl.dreamwidth.org/151436.html)  
Summary: House takes drastic action, and Wilson comes to the rescue.

_________________________________________

Wilson looked down at his hands folded on his knee. He wasn't up front, sitting at one of the long courtroom tables with House's attorney, because he was no longer involved in the case of Mercer County Prosecutor's Office vs. Gregory House.

Lisa Cuddy, the doctor who treated House after the gunshot wound that crippled him, was testifying. Wilson had read all the reports, so there would be no surprises. He glanced at few rows up and across at House, who was gripping his leg, and saw that a tiny spot of blood had bloomed at the side seam of his gray trousers. It was seeping through the heavy bandage Wilson had applied that morning.

_Because you were afraid,_ Wilson thought.  
___

He'd been at work, doing a preliminary examination of an 89-year-old woman blessed to die asleep in her own bed of a heart attack so swift and massive that she never woke up. Wilson was dictating his findings of cyanosis of her lips and fingers when his cell phone vibrated in response to a text from House. 

_Come home. Emergency._

Gloves stripped and discarded, Wilson picked up the phone and called House back. House said only one word: "Wilson." His voice was strained and shaky.

"Are you hurt?"

"Yes. Need you."  
___

Mrs. Blue Lips -- Wilson did not even remember her name -- was slid back into a cooling drawer before he made a quick phone call to the facility's office to claim sudden onset of diarrhea. 

When he unlocked the apartment door, the place was dead quiet, with a yellow rectangle of light from the bathroom falling on the hallway floor. "House?" he said as he walked down the hall. And then he heard it: a low, labored groan.

The bathtub looked as though House was sitting in an abattoir. The tub walls and tiles were smeared with blood, as were House's gloved hands and a streak across his sweaty forehead. 

"What ... what happened?" he asked, just in time for House's head to loll back and a bloodied scalpel to fall from his hand to the tile floor. It bounced, seeming to slow time as it did, and left a spray of blood drops on the floor.

"Something stupid. Something I did," House said between gritted teeth, before he leaned over the side of the tub and vomited on the bath mat. 

The scene seemed to jump by sections into sharp relief: the vials of Lidocaine, the bloodied tourniquet, unopened suture kits, the medical text and the extension arm magnifying glass, the litter of used hypodermics on the floor. A half-empty bottle of Vicodin in the soap niche. The long gash in House's cratered thigh, inexorably filling with a pool of blood.

"You idiot," Wilson said, but he stood fast while House snaked an arm around his leg and buried his face against him.  
___

Getting House out of the tub was a production that ruined Wilson's dress slacks and white shirt, along with a set of sheets. After he had House on the bed, roughly cleaned up and the gaping wound in his already-mangled leg stitched up, he went back to the bathroom. 

On the floor of the tub, among the debris that fell out of House's lap when he levered him up, were three small globular gobbets of human tissue. Wilson turned quickly to the toilet and coughed up the surge of bile from his throat. He hadn't thrown up, even when faced with the worst that could show up on the autopsy table, since his first year as a medical examiner. 

_You didn't love those people. That's the difference._

He gathered a specimen preservation kit from his bag to keep the tissue secure for analysis. He sluiced and scrubbed, threw the reeking bathmat in the garbage, gathered up all the sharps and blood-contaminated materials and sealed them in an old coffee can before pushing it to the bottom of the trash bin.

When he was finished, it looked like nothing had ever happened.  
___

The story came out in bits and pieces while he tended to House over the next two days, having called the office claiming a roaring case of food poisoning to cover his absence.

"Maybe we aren't going to win the case," House said. "I had to get ready. There's this gym ..."

Wilson knew about the gym and had appreciated House's sudden interest in building muscle. 

"A guy. He had some drugs there to increase muscle. Said it works in specific areas. So I took it, for a while. Injected it into my leg."

House looked away, the light from the bedroom window turning his eyes an opalescent blue. 

"So I could walk, if they took my cane away in prison." 

Wilson reached for House's hand, and House's fingers tightened on his.

"It worked. The walking got better. But then the guy was gone for a while. He came back with bandages on his arms, started telling us about the tumors where he'd injected. He had to have them removed..." 

"And you didn't trust a doctor to do it?"

House looked back at him. "The stuff's illegal. I'm about to go to trial for illegally obtaining prescription narcotics. Let's just say it wouldn't look very good."

"So you went to the library and the medical supply store and DIY'd some tumor surgery."

"Not the best idea in retrospect, but you work with what you got." 

There was silence while Wilson held his hand and gathered his thoughts. "Your case is good. The lawyer says it's damned near bulletproof. Hell, he wants to hire you as his investigator now because of everything you dug up about Tritter and the department."

House rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "I know. I know. But I also know that I did something wrong. Several somethings, actually. That's the hinge law swings on. And we go to trial in three days."

Wilson let go of House's hand, rounded the end of the bed and climbed on it beside him. 

"Wilson..." House said. 

So much always passed between them unsaid. Once he'd learned to read the nuances of House's expressions, his posture, even the endless fidgeting of his hands, there wasn't much need for words. The last of the sunlight limned House's profile, outlining him in gold.

"I know, House," Wilson said and pulled him close. "I know." 

 

_The End_


End file.
